On November 23, we met with Susan Scher, who is an advisor for Goldman Sachs. She explained to us about how she advised them about raising money and managing risks. While on the visit, I think my group learned a lot of things, some of them being that in the late 80s, there were almost no women in the business industry and because of this, Susan (or as she is called, Susie) felt like there was the stereotype of the female as young and cute. This meant that females weren’t expected to do as much or succeed as much as men. My group also learned that 25 years ago, Susie worked on Wall Street and there were little to no other women on her floor. During a guy’s birthday, they (meaning the other men) would hire a stripper and she would strip in front of the entire floor down to a g-string and some tassels. Susie couldn’t really say anything about it but for her it felt awkward. We also learned that 19 years ago, there were few senior women with children, and Susie felt like she had to chose between work and family. She also felt like in order to succeed, you had to choose work over family. She also felt like being one of the few senior women meant that she didn’t have a lot of role models or people to look up to, but now Susie feels like she blazed a trail for women because she was able to maintain a senior position in the company, along with balancing her family life. Now, she told us that all women who work for her that are old enough, have children. I think this was a big breakthrough for our group because it really allowed us to see how far women have come in the work place today, compared to women 25 years ago. It also showed my group how in a way, women were discriminated against because they were thought of as less able and their opinions didn’t matter as much as they do today. I feel like this also motivated my group more to find justice for our topic. Women were discriminated against 25 years ago, and still face many challenges before we are able to break through the “glass ceiling”. I think we will use this information in the teach-in as an example of how far women have come. I feel like it would also be good to use it as a comparison of some of the challenges that women have overcome, as well as all of the challenges we still face and the ones that have surfaced in recent years.
